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Ponds constitute a pivotal component of aquatic ecosystems. The aquatic ecosystem of the Huai River Basin (HRB) in China was once damaged by severe pollution, and numerous ponds in the basin have not been secured. In this paper, Shenqiu County, a typical county in HRB with many ponds, is selected. Based on high-resolution images with ALOS in 2010, GF-2 in 2016, and GF-1 in 2022, we employed discriminant analysis (DA), classification and regression tree, support vector machine, and random forest to extract the ponds based on object-oriented and further analyzed the spatial-temporal variations of the ponds in this county. The results of the DA in these three years exhibited a higher kappa coefficient (>0.7), and overall accuracy (>75%), signifying superior performance when compared to the other three methods. There were 4625, 5315, and 4748 ponds in 2010, 2016, and 2022, with a total area of 12.87, 11.99, and 9.37 km2, respectively. The number of ponds had a trend of rising in the initial period (2010–2016) and falling later (2016–2022), while the total area revealed a continuous decline. Meanwhile, these ponds showed a clustering phenomenon with three main clustering areas, and the scope of the clustering areas also changed to a certain extent from 2010 to 2022. Our study offers valuable methodological support for the ecological monitoring and management of water environments in regions characterized by a dense concentration of ponds. The crucial data related to ponds in this study will help inform both environmental and social development initiatives within the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]